The True Love Experiment

Christina Lauren is the pen name adopted by the American writing team of Christian Hobbs and Lauren Billings. Together, they have written over 30 books of contemporary adult romance, new adult romance, and young adult fiction.

Their first novel together was Beautiful Bastard (2013), a reworking of a story that began as Twilight fan fiction and enjoyed enormous popularity. The success of Fifty Shades of Grey with its office romance, billionaire boss, and erotic encounters led Simon & Schuster to acquire the duo’s Beautiful series with its similar tropes. The nine books in the series, published between 2013 and 2016, all reached the New York Times bestseller list. The Wild Seasons series, which debuted in 2014, enjoyed similar success as readers were drawn to the new adult romances of a group of graduating college students entering the real world. Their standalone novels have received varying levels of acclaim, with many becoming bestsellers or optioned for film adaptations. Autoboyography (2017) won praise for its sensitive story about two teen boys falling in love and coming out to their communities.

The authors frequently work pop culture references into their fiction, particularly into their romances, which they define as light-hearted and fun. This is clear in The True Love Experiment, which plays with both romance novel and reality TV conventions.